No longer a second banana, Nazareth native Kate Micucci has a new naughty comedy TV show, 'Garfunkel and Oates,' premiering Thursday

Kate Micucci says it wasn't until she started getting dirty that her clever songs became hits.

And she probably wouldn't have gotten dirty, she says, if it wasn't for Riki Lindhome, her musical comedy partner, and one-half of her duo "Garfunkel and Oates."

Now the clever duo has their own TV show, an eight-episode IFC series premiering at 10 p.m. Thursday. The show, named after the duo, will follow Micucci and Lindhome as hardworking comedy underdogs who struggle to make their mark in the comedy world while muddling through messy dating scenarios.

It's a daydream come true for Micucci, a 1998 graduate of Nazareth Area High School who lives in Los Angeles.

"We are so fortunate to be able to do this," she says. "It's so surreal."

She says the scripted series is based on the pair's lives, although some elements, such as Micucci having an audition with Ben Kingsley and the pair meeting their porn alter-egos, are fiction.

"It's an exaggerated version of who we are," she says. "We are both in our 30s and we spend our days touring the country. It's a weird life to have so we have fun with it. It's all about the balance of having a career and dating. A lot of the core elements are truthful."

Micucci says when she first started doing comedy in Pennsylvania, there was nothing racy about it. She says she performed "sweet songs about my dog."

She and Lindhome met when both performed at the Upright Citizens Brigade in Los Angeles in 2007. They joined forces for "Imaginary Larry," a short musical film by Lindhome about a girl with an imaginary friend. They formed Garfunkel and Oates, named after the "two famous rock 'n' roll second bananas," Art Garfunkel of Simon and Garfunkel and John Oates of Hall & Oates.

"I'm Oates, because I'm shorter and if I'm not careful I will have a moustache," says Micucci, who plays ukelele in the duo.

Garfunkel and Oates, which sings about R-rated topics, including accidental masturbation and hand jobs, quickly gained a following.

"When I met Riki, I started singing dirtier material and it's amazing how the audience responded," Micucci says. "It was like a rocket ship."

Micucci grew up in Nazareth, where she was recognized early on for her artistic talents and played classical piano. She first picked up the ukulele while living in Hawaii after college to work at a pineapple plant.

"I was missing my piano and my grandpa bought me a ukulele," she says. "When I started touring it was easier to take the ukulele than the piano."

Micucci is also an actress and got her breakthrough acting role in 2009 on TV's "Scrubs" as the ukulele-strumming Stephanie Gooch. She followed that with a role opposite Kristen Bell in the romantic comedy film "When in Rome." Then she had a recurring role on the series "Til Death" in 2010 and also snagged the recurring role of Shelly in Fox's "Raising Hope."

In 2012 Micucci appeared in her highest profile role to date, as Lucy, the recurring love interest for astrophysicist Rajesh Koothrappali, played by Kunal Nayyar on the CBS hit "The Big Bang Theory." She and Lindhome wrote the love song "If I Didn't Have You," which was sung by "Big Bang's" Howard for Bernadette for their anniversary on the show last season.

When not acting, Micucci and Lindhome were sitting on Lindhome's couch and recording videos of their racy songs and posting them online. The duo also played off their mismatched appearances: Lindhome is tall and blonde and Micucci short and dark.

"A lot of people watched the videos," Micucci says. "It is really interesting how people respond when you sing honest songs that are R-rated. There is definitely an audience for them."

Soon the pair were making the rounds of late-night television performing their music. They released two full-length albums — "Slippery When Moist" and "All Over Your Face."

In 2011, Micucci says they signed with HBO to make a series, but then the pay channel pulled out.

Undaunted they continued to performed all over the country and were featured in an episode of Comedy Central's "The Half Hour" in 2012. That same year they performed at Musikfest Cafe in the ArtsQuest Center in Bethlehem.

Micucci, who has a distinctive high voice, also discovered a talent for voice work. She has voiced animated characters on shows that include "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," "Adventure Time," "Ben10: Omniverse" and "Teen Titans Go!,"

Last year she was cast to voice the character of Sadie in Cartoon Network's animated show "Steven Universe," and voiced Tony in "Rio 2," the sequel to the hit animated film.

She also voiced main characters in both Disney's "Motorcity" and IFC's "Out There," both of which were not renewed, but then IFC said it was interested in the series that Micucci and Lindhome failed to get on HBO.

Micucci says they had just 3 1/2 days to shoot each episode of the IFC series.